My life as a mom with 5 young children is beautifully imperfect

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Monthly Archives: May 2014

I have been going back through some photos of the kids rooms in previous houses lately. Their rooms were so much cuter before. I guess I had more time back then. Now that we are in this house to stay for a long time, I want to make their rooms nice. So this weekend I am looking for inspiration for little girl’s (and medium girl’s) rooms that are shared. Have a look…

I love those circles on the wall. Looks like they are just fabric in looms hung on the wall. How easy is that!

That lamp is cute with the bobbles on the bottom. I could do that! And I like the colored headboard idea.

Not sure I would actually do anything that is in this room, but I just think it is too stinkin’ cute to not pass along!

So much about this room I love. Color of the walls, light fixture, drapes, lampshades, pillows, artwork, bed frame. Seriously not typical, and so beautiful.

Those colors and fabrics are so sweet.

I am in love with striped walls right now. And poofs (see that pink one in there).

This picture is hard to really see, but I love that word “giggle” on the wall. Wouldn’t it be cool to do a collage of words like that above each girl’s bed but use words that describe her? I may have to try it.

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I have read all sorts of things on simplifying your life. Some that come to mind are:
“you should simplify your life by making your own shampoo out of things you find in your kitchen”
“you should simplify your life by making your own bread from scratch – the simplest form is the best for you, you know”
“you should simplify your life by repurposing things instead of throwing them out”

I’m not saying any of these things are wrong. They are all really good things and if you can and want to do them WITHOUT jeopardizing the plan God has for you that day, go for it. But what I am taking issue with is people saying these are ways to simplify your life. They seem to complify it to me. Complify is a made-up work meaning: the opposite of simplify.

How about throwing stuff out? Let’s get in there and simplify the old fashioned way and actually get rid ofthings.

To simplify your life is NOT to go buy a bunch of organizing tubs and spend an entire day making your craft closet look incredible. Only to spend hours every week keeping it looking like this.

To simplify your schedule is NOT buying a mind-blowing day planner, spending a week transferring all of your activities into it and an hour each day making lists and crossing things off. Even though I LOVE to do this.

To simplify your kids toys is NOT spending a weekend in the basement labeling all of your bins with neat little pictures and words and sorting the toys accordingly. Only to have it ransacked in about 30 minutes by one little person.

Now, I’m not saying that your house can’t be neat and organized. In fact, I need my home to be neat so I can be calm. But it doesn’t have to be Pinterest perfect. It needs to fulfill it’s function. We spend a lot of time intending to simplify our lives but actually complifying them.

I think if we truly simplified our lives they would be less stressful and more enjoyable. Dare I say, peaceful.

I will say with a great deal of certainty that we would have time to do the things God had for us on his agenda for that day. Talking to a friend, getting to know a neighbor, listening intently to our child…

But I don’t think we get there by putting everything in a neat little box. I think we get there by making things less complex. It should be easy to clean my room, and it would be, if I only had what I needed in it.

I think we get there by making our schedules easier and less hectic by only doing what we have to do and not complifying them with extra activities and errands where we get and do things we don’t need to get or do.

I think we get there by making our home systems less complicated, by rearranging and organizing our homes to make getting to the things we need easier to get to and easier to put away. Maybe toys don’t have to go in the correctly labeled basket, but instead they just need to be put away somewhere.

For me, it starts with donating all of the things my children haven’t missed in over a month. If you didn’t see this story you can read it here. It’s a start.

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A few months ago I decided to launch an all out attack on the clutter in our home. I was sick and tired, sick AND tired I said, of the junk that gets left laying around day after day. Here is a sneak peek at the bigs room after they left for school one day. By the way, this is a typical day.

These pictures are for real. I did not toss their room.

So my plan was to grab a garbage bag and put everything in it that they left laying around. I told them their rooms were to be clean before going to school, and their other assigned areas were to be done before going to bed. Good plan right?

I figured I would collect a bunch of stuff for the first few days while they tested to see if I was “serious”. But then they would begin to need some of their things back. Either they would have nothing to wear or nothing to do. And I would feel bad for them, not to mention responsible for their library book that was for sure going to be in there. So I would allow them to buy back the stuff they wanted if they had the money. $1 per item. Sounds even better, right? They are going to learn some responsibility for their things for sure. I’m a good mommy!

Well, the joke’s on me! Instead, of more responsible kids, I ended up with a pile of junk in my room for over a month. The first week the bigs needed a few of their favorite clothes, but after that no one has needed anything out of here, so it just keeps piling up.

Obviously we have too much stuff!

I figure I spend about 1/3 of my day picking up, cleaning, organizing, moving, and sorting stuff instead of visiting with neighbors, playing with my kiddos, or relaxing myself.

Something needs to change. I would like a less cluttered life. I would like to not always be in a rush. I would like to spend time with friends and kids and husband without the nagging in my head that there is a list of things to be done and I could be doing them NOW. I just want to be free to be social, the way God made me.

But I believe, without a doubt, this is not the way God wants me to spend my time.

I ran across this a few months ago and was really struck by it. While I digest this and come up with a new and improved “plan” see what you think:

The other morning around 7:30 a.m. my husband received a phone call from our credit card company alerting us to some possible fraud going on with our account earlier that morning. The friendly account manager proceeded to go through the charges in question to make sure they weren’t in fact ours.

Nothing sounded familiar at all, and we were outraged! The total was over $200. How could this happen? Those criminals!

The diligent account manager continued to do some “checking” on those purchases and noticed they were all made through our iTunes account.

He gently suggested we check to see if there was some fraudulent activity going on in our own home, under our own noses. “Do you have children in the home who might be making purchases in some games, maybe?”

OMG… NUMBER 3!

We called the little man into the office for a convo. It was then that we fully understood what had happened.

See, he was playing this game early that morning and he needed a new weapon to fight off a new predator. So he had to get it – $7.50. Then he came across some gold coins that would really help him get further in the game and he decided he needed those – $107.00 which he bought twice because why not?

Now, he has no idea how much $100 is but the people who make these games do. I would really like to totally blame them and label them criminals, crooked, delinquents, villains, even jerks but obviously I have a role in this too since I am the parent.

So I will take responsibility for this, and so will my son from this day forward.

And I thought I had been so careful with the “devices”. I had turned on the parental controls with the proper rating for my children’s ages. I had taken the internet off and YouTube off. I monitor their games on a regular basis to make sure it all looks on the up and up.

But I didn’t have the “in-app purchases not permitted” turned on. Oops, missed that one!

So now I know, now my children know, and now you know (although you probably already did) that you need that one checked too.

OK, on with getting my home back… With my focus secure on God I am more calm and I can think much more clearly. Now it’s time to get some tangible ideas to help me do the work of getting my home back in control.

So, the next thing I do is consult my personal board of directors. This is a team of friends that I call on when I need some advise or guidance. I will give more details on how, and why, I constructed this personal board of directors in another post.

For this situation I went to three people on “the board”. The first, and most important, was the husband. He is always good at putting things in perspective for me and encouraging me. But, he also does this job with me on a daily basis and I needed him to know how I was feeling and we needed to work on a “plan” together. Even if I am the one with the children all day, I need him to have my back on this stuff. So at our Sunday evening “meeting” we discussed the demands on my time, the expectations people had of me and areas of frustration in the home. It was a really good talk and it got us on the same page.

The next one is a good friend that I can always count on to give me solid advise on just about anything. But she is particularly good with organizing thoughts and schedules and making sure I give myself grace – a beautiful combination, really. The third one is a seasoned mother who has all sorts of good ideas and will always lift me up in my struggles. So I knew in picking these three that I would come out equipped and supported!

From these three “meetings” I came away with a plan of attack:

1. Make a list of issues that need to be addresses. List out all of the things that are out of control. All of them. Get them out and on paper so you can sort through them.

2. Pick the one that bothers you the most. That was easy: for me it is disrespect. I aplore disrespect. Don’t disrespect me, our home or the things in it. It makes my head steam when someone puts me down, sasses me, blames me for their problems, doesn’t do what I have asked them to do and on and on. I realized that many things on my list fell under this category, so I decided it was a non-negotiable. There needed to be some consequences for any disrespectful act.

3. Assign consequences to your non-negotiable behaviors. I used my long list of grievances (number 1 above) and then put a consequence next to all the the ones that were disrespectful behaviors. I am only dealing with those for now. So, about half of my list has consequences assigned. This list is private, I do not share it with the children. But, it helps me to discipline on the fly. If I don’t do this, as soon as one child sasses me, I blubber and flubber around not knowing what to say. But if I have predetermined what I will do, it is easier for me to take appropriate, and less emotional action in the moment. I shared these with the husband only. The kids, well they get to find out as we go!! And my consequences are always as creative as possible. For instance, if you drag your feet, throw a fit and slobber all over yourself when we are trying to get out the door making us 5 minutes late for our destination, you get to sit around my kitchen with me for 5 minutes waiting to go outside and play with the kids on the street when we get home.

4. Take care of yourself. The best way to explain what I mean here is to tell you a story. The other night the bigs were fighting in their room after lights-out time. They were yelling and things were crashing down on the floor. It was getting late and I was having to continually go up to their room to deal with their nonsense. I was irritated and tired. I didn’t get to relax the way I like to in the evening at all. I went straight from mediating their fights to getting in bed and going to sleep.

Not a rejuvenating evening at all.

So the next morning, I woke them up and then went down to get breakfast and lunches prepared as usual. And that is when I got my brilliant idea. Now, my kids have never bought their lunch at school, not because I won’t let them, but because they DO NOT want to. They insists on not buying lunch at school because the lines are long and it cuts into their recess time.

Ahhh, perfect!

So instead of rushing around getting lunches made that morning I grabbed $5 from each of the bigs “piggy banks” and left them for them on the counter where I usually put their lunch boxes. Then I grabbed some cereal, put it on the table and made myself a cup of hot tea. I sat at the table with my feet up and had a wonderful conversation with the kiddos. We talked about all sorts of things, plus we helped the bigs work out some of their issues. I have to tell you, I had a great breakfast. It was relaxing and enjoyable.

Then it was time to go to school and the bigs went to grab their lunch boxes. WHAT?

“Where are our lunches?”

“You forgot to pack them!”

“Mom, what have you been doing?”

“What are we going to do?”

I kindly pointed to their $5 bills sitting on the counter and said, “This is so sad. I didn’t have the energy to make them for you this morning since I was up last night dealing with your fighting. I knew you would understand so I took the money from your banks this morning so you can buy your own lunches and I could have a break. Hopefully I will get more rest tonight. Enjoy your day.”

Then I sent them out the door. That night the house was much more restful.

I gave them loving, logical consequences while taking care myself at the same time. It’s a win-win, isn’t it!

5. Call on reinforcements to help you stay the course. This part is the hardest for me. As time goes on I find myself getting lazy and letting go of my non-negotiables. Not following through with consequences. Only to get back to the same place of utter frustration. That’s why this step is solo important. I am going to call on my board to help me stay on track. When I have a bad day, I’m going to text one of them and tell them where I let things slide. I know the ones I have chosen will be incredibly supportive and encouraging. And that is all it takes for me – someone who understands, can see things clearly when I can’t and loves me no matter how messed up my home may be.

This is a great start to getting my home back in order. Once I have done these things the other stuff on my list seems less important somehow. But there are still some things I know I need to address for the sake of my children so we will come back to them.

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I thought that on the weekends I might post some of the inspiration photos I am using for my next project(s)! Right now we are working on improving our back patio. We would like a fireplace to warm the space up and provide some ambiance. Hopefully these will inspire you too!

Love this huge table with fireplace. That would be an awesome-fun dinner, wouldn’t it?

I’m loving this outdoor table from Pottery Barn. It has a zinc top, or you can get it in concrete. I’m wondering how either of those would weather? Anyone know?

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That night after the stink hit the fan I took a shower and prayed. Some people sing in the shower, I pray.

I asked God to give me wisdom to know what I needed to do to get things back on track and then the strength to do it.

Then I put on my comfy clothes, including my favorite (all-be-it ugly) robe and made myself a cup of hot tea. I sat down with my “Jesus Calling” book and another devotional and listened to what He wanted to say to me that night.

What I heard was this:

He gave me 5 precious children on purpose. This was no accident, He intended it, every one of them. I was purposed to be their mother from the beginning of time. They are my calling. We are uniquely made for each other.

How beautiful is that? No one can do a better job of raising them than I can, God made them for me and me for them. Maybe I’m not a failure after all?

He promises to be with me always, which means He knows exactly what is going on in my house, and why. And since He can see hearts and minds He has a huge leg up on me here.

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

He promises to give me strength to do what He asks of me. Even if I think 5 kids is too many for me to manage, He says I can do it with His help. And that is exactly how He intends it to be done – together with Him.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Psalms 46:1

“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31

Oh, to run and not grow weary, walk and not be faint as I pass from bedroom to bedroom putting clothes and things away.

That night I didn’t have any answers to the chaos or a plan of attack. Heck, I didn’t even know what all of the problems were. But I did have a clear head and steady feet. I felt armed with confidence and purpose. Next was to figure out what needed to be done and how I was to accomplish it.